Press Release
Contact: Robert Albright |
Phone: 919-549-7500 ext.123 |
CED President Contributes to National Entrepreneurship Efforts
CED’s Monica Doss Judges National Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards; Also Chairs Kauffman-supported Entrepreneurial Education Foundation
August 25, 2005, Research Triangle Park, NC – The Council for Entrepreneurial Development (CED) today announced that CED President Monica Doss recently served as a national judge for the 2005 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year program. Now in its 19th year, the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year awards recognize the most successful and innovative entrepreneurs in the country.
Doss joined a judging panel of entrepreneurs and other thought-leaders in academia, business and the media. The national judges met at the Kauffman Foundation's headquarters in Kansas City August 16-17 to select finalists and winners in a range of categories, such as health sciences, technology and financial services.
The judges evaluated award finalists and winners from a pool of regional entrepreneurial standouts. All category winners, including the overall winner, will be officially announced during Ernst & Young’s annual Entrepreneur Of The Year awards celebration in Palm Springs on November 17-20, 2005.
“I am honored to serve as a national judge for Ernst & Young’s prestigious awards program this year,” said Doss, who received the 1999 National Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in the Supporter of Entrepreneurship category. “The entrepreneurs competing for these awards are truly inspiring.”
In addition to serving as a national judge in Kansas City, Doss is also volunteering her time as CEO and Chairman of the Board of the Entrepreneurial Education Foundation. Primarily funded by the Kauffman Foundation, the Kansas City-based Entrepreneurial Education Foundation is charged with disseminating adult entrepreneurial education programs nationally and internationally.
The Entrepreneurial Education Foundation specifically focuses on supporting FastTrac (www.fasttrac.org), a comprehensive entrepreneurship-educational program written and facilitated by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs. FastTrac’s nine programs are currently provided in 49 states by 270 partner organizations.
One of FastTrac’s partner organizations is CED, which has taken the lead in curriculum development and support by offering FastTrac Tech - an intensive, 10-week training and mentoring program specifically for high-growth entrepreneurs. For more information on CED's FastTrac Tech course, visit www.cednc.org/programs/capital_connection/fasttrac_tech/.
About CED: The Council for Entrepreneurial Development, headquartered in Research Triangle Park with a divisional office in Wilmington, is a private, non-profit organization formed in 1984 to stimulate the creation and growth of high-impact companies in various North Carolina innovation centers. In July 2005, Wilmington’s Coastal Entrepreneurial Council merged with CED to create CED-Coastal, a divisional office focused on entrepreneurial development in Wilmington and throughout North Carolina’s entire coastal region. CED provides education, mentoring and capital formation resources to new and existing high-growth entrepreneurs through annual conferences, seminars, workshops and programs on entrepreneurial management and finance. CED is the largest and oldest entrepreneurial support organization in the nation with more than 4,000 members representing over 1,100 entrepreneurial companies, financiers and professional firms. www.cednc.org.
###